What is your recommended way to store games?

[Deleted member 434]

iso, zso, zip or something else?

 

[GeoHikari]

Since I have many physical medias for PS2(and only 12 for PS4), I also play games in emulators in my PC. With my computer, several ROMs and ISOs are stored into Pen Drivers who I dedicates for them. These same ones are in main HD here.

But I will follow the sugestion of "Deleted member 434": next year I must buy a third external HD(I have two other ones, but dedicated only for animes and Tokusatsus), and these ones of games will go on the newest. Pen Drivers are good backup objects, but somethimes they gains a faillure of contats when the real time advances.

 

[MistHunter]

I'm not an expert, however, this information is priceless.

some months ago, I met somebody who is a rom/iso leecher. quite a big one, if you ask me.
at first glance, he had a 'decent' collection of roms and isos. then...
I saw his 'hidden huge collection' (and 'hysteria') for "maintaining the main library".
when I saw such "library" with a "are you THAT serious?" on my face, he just smiled.
on the other hand, he is such a carefree (and somewhat selfish) person and wants to share (with pity results), the 'joy of videogames'.
he offered to a lot of people, a service of "roms and isos distribution",
through usb's (free of charge, by the way).
well, that didn't last long, for all the wrong reasons
(nobody took it into account, now matter how hard he tried).

anyway.
he took the trouble to sort everything with 7-zip.
every. title. from the lightest to the heaviest.
months compressing, more than 1000 videogames in emulation, with only a laptop and a half-destroyed external hard drive (near 400 GB, compressed).
"like a fourth or fifth time, reconstructing the library", I heard from this leecher once.

other things I heard from that leecher:
"never trust in a hard disc drive, keeping everything forever. this things are so delicate, if you are not careful enough"
"it is not a matter of compressing everything and just saving space for more.
it's a matter of making it more durable over time.
you know, the best compressors for the heaviest and the lightest, something like winzip/rar"
"making a folder, for every respective console rom/iso, renaming it, and even making an own section for savestates and the like"
"always have that respective rom/iso, a backup (this is more possible with the light ones), and an uncompressed ready to play copy (if you are wanting to play it in your everyday)"
"to make it less confusing, whatever you have played or not, four main categories at the least:
finished, release, repeat(ed versions; for whatever specific reason) and miscellaneous"
"for people who have parents who don't respect video games, just don't be obvious with the names.
be creative, hide it in C:/, or something that they cannot easily figure out how to find"
"keep a list. whether a physical one with pen and paper, or a digital one with empty files (like notepad) and putting in it, the titles of the videogames. if you want add something, feel free to add notes to check later"

...well, this is from that leecher.
my personal opinion:

got @_@

 

[Deleted member 434]

Yes good advice to have a list of file and folder names.

 

[MistHunter]

Was it because of file corruption?

No. it was "human corruption" to him, I guess...?
(angry parents or clueless family, treacherous people, physical accidents, etc.)

I'm taking this advices into account, this is amazing to reach this kind of knowledge.
I have no idea about compressing a lot of roms/isos in one compressed file, looks risky.
you are right about that important detail of avoiding multiple file corruptions.